Hello all from the Far North! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

I've been doing quite a bit a work on Old George

my 49 F1 lately and right now he's getting ready for interior paint and exterior clear coat. I've taken everything out of the cab to prepare it for paint and will redo all the old wiring when I put it back together. I decided to give the 4 position headlight switch a try from Painless and eliminate the floor switch for the high beams.

Those of you that have helped me before know that electrical is not my strong point. Here's my dilemma:

The original headlight switch has two wires leading to it from the circuit breaker (1 from the top post and one from the bottom) I confirmed this was correct according to the shop manual. The 4 position switch only has one post marked for power.
Which post should I use to power the switch with and what do I do with the other wire that previous led to the original switch? Or a brief explaination of what the difference in the 2 wires are that are coming off the circuit breaker would be great as well.

Thanks in advance for your input, and enjoy those leftovers!

 

On the stock switch: the Yellow w/red wire is to power the headlights, the Black w/orangewire is to power the brake lights, parking lights, and instrument panel lights.

With your new switch, all the lights inside and out are fed off one wire, so use the Yellow/red wire. You will have to bring the High Beam wire from the foot switch up under the dash to your new switch, and rewire the high beam indicator.

 

Thanks for the quick reply Ross! I figured if anyone had an answer that you would. I might be missing something but it looks like the Green from the bottom post should go to the brake light switch. What then happens to the B-O?

 

I had it backwards; the Y-R is for parking lights and such, and the Bl-Orange is for headlights. The Bl-Or is #12, the Y-R is #14. The feed to the new switch needs to come off the 30-amp breaker. The Y-R just gets deleted.

 

That makes sense to me. Thanks again Ross! It will be a couple months until I can install and test the 4 position switch, but I'll post a little review on the end of this. I've read mixed reviews, so I'm curious if I'll like it or not. Take care.